Entertainment Weekly recently reported that ABC is developing Brian Michael Bendis’ Marvel series Alias as a TV series. It centered on private investigator Jessica Jones, a former super heroine. Bendis is listed as a consultant, while Melissa Rosenberg is credited as the writer. It’s going to be called Aka Jessica Jones, as calling it Alias would be pretty confusing. I hate to be negative about a project that is so early in the development stage, but I have some serious reservations about this. I really liked Alias, (earlier this year I named Jessica Jones one of my top female characters) but I can’t really see it translating well as a television series. Especially on risk wary network television. Jessica’s back story is pretty dark, while it’s about equal to some of the stuff seen on SVU and CSI, I doubt that the network would sign off on it for a lead female character. So it would likely be watered down. They will probably be worried that Jess’ drinking, and self destructive behavior, would turn off viewers, and try to make her flaws more “relatable”, like compulsive eating. Gone also would be the references to the surrounding Marvel universe, which was pivotal to the series, to illustrate and contrast Jess’ role within it. They would have to go, since it’s unlikely Marvel would grant them the rights to use Spider-man, or the Fantastic Four, and it would confusing for the casual viewer anyway. And while in the comics Jess’ cases were pretty gritty, with a superhero element thrown in, the series is probably going to want to inject a whole lot more action into it. Altogether it would probably make the show pretty unrecognizable from it’s source material. Also worrying is that Bendis is just a consultant, while Rosenberg is in charge. Her only credit listed in the article is writing the screenplay for Twilight. That movie was a huge financial success, so it makes sense that she would be given more oppurtunties as a result. It’s just that I found that movie dreadfully boring (I haven’t read the book yet, so I can’t say how much of that can be blamed on the source material, over the screenplay).
I really hope that I’m wrong. I hope that whatever comes from this is awesome, regardless of how much it resembles the excellent comic series. I’m just skeptical, about the likelihood. Between this news, the David E. Kelley run Wonder Woman series, and the Jossless Buffy reboot, the next few years are not looking promising for female superheroes on screen.